Chapter 2
Jeremi read the letter and swore pungently.
"Cossacks?" asked his wife.
"No ... well not exactly," said the prince. "You read it."
Gryzelda read the letter, frowned, and read it again.
"No felicity of style; one would not think her to be a princess," she said. "I am sorry now your father did not ask one of his loyal men to take her into his household; the incident with her father was before we were married, I believe?"
"Some five years before," said Jeremi, absently. "And he was loyal all along, it was a plot to discredit him ... damn that filthy Cossack wife Konstantin married. We can't leave her there ... prefers to run off with one of my registered Cossacks forsooth!"
"But I read nothing to suggest she sees it as romantic, going to his protection, not to wed him out of hand," said Gryzelda. "She asks your permission; if he is the only young man who has been kind to her, she would see him as a saviour. She should be taught how to hold her position in life and be given more choice."
"Yes, yes, you are right," said Jeremi. "She says she is leaving with him, but if I send young Skrzetuski, he is an enthusiast and may get there before she runs away. It takes any woman a prodigious time to manage to be on the road, after all."
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Helena lay in a camp bed in Jurko's tent, separated from his bed by a makeshift curtain of brocade, wondering if she had done the right thing.
Well it was too late now to change her mind. She reflected on the day's dizzying events.
Jurko had ridden away from the Dwór Rozłogi, and she had sneaked out to meet him in the woods, in Nikolai's clothing, with extra clothes, including a gown, in her pack.
"We will cut your hair here," he said. "I dare not cut it to the length of those who wear it long, like Jeremi, as it will not sufficiently hide who you are. I ... I thought to cut your braids intact, bound with thread, and keep them to sew to a cap."
"Jurko, that is so clever!" she exclaimed, admiringly.
"I ... I thought to be drastic, and shave all the rest of your head, save a scalp-lock, the oseledets of a Cossack, but as I don't wear it myself, I wasn't sure if that was too much to ask."
"Do it," said Helena, recklessly.
He had bound the tops of her long, heavy, thick braids, and cut them carefully off with his sabre. He rolled them reverently and put them in his own pack.
"Sure?" he said.
"Sure," said Helena, swallowing hard.
He had shaved her head gently, and Helena was amazed at how pleasurable it was. And even more so as he carded his fingers softly through the scalp-lock which was left. Helena leaned into the feeling. Starved of affection as she was, this was heaven. Jurko dropped a kiss on the nape of her neck.
"Come, little cuckoo, we must be on our way," he said. "The birds will take your hair for their nests, and all the evidence will disappear. I do not believe in the superstitions that this causes headaches; you are my little bird, and your hair will aid other little birds who will be grateful."
Helena heard Jurko come into the tent, and froze. She kept her eyes shut as she heard the brocade curtain snap.
"So young," murmured Jurko. Helena stirred as his hand touched her face, once, gently. "I swear, my cuckoo, my darling, that I will not touch you anywhere intimate, nor look for intimacy, until or unless you ask for it. You will not have to fear anything from me. And I should tell you so when you awake, but not yet, lest the thought of it scares you. I guard you with my life, for you are more precious to me than anything."
He left her to prepare for his own bed, but Helena could still feel his hand on her face, even as the light kiss to the nape of her neck still burned, pleasantly but incomprehensibly.
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The old Princess Kurtzewiczowa was apoplectic with fury.
She had called for Helena to come and admire the riches her sons and Bohun had brought, only to have the girl fail to appear. Servants sent for her reported that she was not in her room. The old woman went to look for herself, and found a letter on Helena's pillow. Her own literacy skills were not great, but she had picked up enough to puzzle through what Helena had written.
Aunt,
You have gone too far this time. I will not be bought and sold like a slave on the slave blocks in the Crimea, and so I am leaving you to place my trust in Prince Jeremi.
Helena.
After having sworn and cursed, the princess called for her sons, and sent them out to run down the runaway before she might reach Jeremi.
"But ...but what are we to do with her, mother, if she does not want to come?" asked Simeon.
"Bind her and bring her back across your saddle," said his mother. "Beat her if you have to, but bring her back. It's for her own good," she added, craftily.
"If you say so, mother," said Simeon, doubtfully. "Why did she run away, though?"
"She's an ungrateful brat," said the old princess.
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Jan Skrzetuski was not a happy young man.
The idea of being sent to collect a little girl as if he was some dominie in a ladies' seminary stung his pride. But he was a man who did his duty, and if the prince said she was at risk from her own relatives and of kidnap as well, then he would put up with some spoilt and wayward princess who would doubtless whine all the way back to Kijów, and would try to order him about.
Jan was frankly shocked and disgusted by the Dwór Rozłogi when he reached it; it was no more than a log-built dwór one might expect to be the dwelling of szlachetka, not of a princely family. However, he had heard that eastern marcher estates were often finer on the inside than the out, to deter raiders. The gate was shut against him.
Jan hammered on the gate.
"Open up in the name of Jeremi Korybut Wiśniowiecki!" he cried.
An old woman shortly appeared on the watch-tower.
"Be away with you, Lach!" she cried, making an obscene gesture. "Your prince has the girl; she won't be of age for another six years, and I know how to hold the estate. So don't come high and mighty with me."
"I have come to collect the Princess Helena Kurcewiczówna," said Jan. "Hand her over to me, and I'll let you send your arguments to Prince Jeremi about who holds the dwór. All I want is the girl."
"What do you mean? You have the ungrateful chit, and I am glad of it, she has been nothing but a burden to me," said the old woman.
"I do not have her," said Jan. "She wrote to the prince, and I have been sent to collect her."
"Then it is your responsibility to find her," said the old princess. "I sent out my sons when she ran away, and they have ridden far and wide; Yuri and Simeon are ye t to return, but the others have not found any sign of her. Faugh! How like her to show off that she can write, and still to run away, the graceless chit, and does she respond to beatings? Not her! I wash my hands of her, but Rozłogi I hold, she has gifted it to me by leaving."
"I don't think the laws of inheritance work like that," said Jan, mildly, revising his opinion of a girl who was beaten not being likely to be the spoiled brat he had envisioned. She ran away? He should go after her, who could guess how much trouble a nubile girl could get into, sheltered in the life of a szlachcianka, but without the protections of having servants with her to proclaim her status and stop any from laying lewd hands on her.
He was about to ride away when several horsemen arrived.
"Who are you?" asked the leader. His fellow was a hulking great man, and they had retainers with them.
"Jan Skrzetuski, envoy of Prince Jeremi," said Jan. "And are you Simeon and Yury? You have not found her?"
Simeon shook a tired head.
"No, not anywhere on the road, nor any sign in any villages on the way. But I found some hair the colour of hers, and a scarf in the woods, so I fear the worst."
"Surely no wild animal would tear out her hair?" asked Jan.
"No, it is cut. No Tatar raider would cut the hair of a beautiful girl, he would lose much of her price, but a calculating kidnapper might have cut off a lock of it, to send back to us as proof they have her."
"Could it be this Bohun I have heard tell about, who is a Cossack?" asked Jan.
"No, never, he would not hurt a hair on her head."
"Do you know where he is?"
Simeon shrugged.
"We had all just returned from a raid on the Crimea, I assume he has gone back to barracks, or to obey orders. He is recently made captain."
"Then if you will let me in, we might put our heads together to find the missing princess," said Jan.
"Certainly," said the amiable Simeon. The hulking Yury scowled, but nodded. "Open up, mother," called Simeon.
It was with reluctance that the old woman opened the gate.
"Splendid, we can cover a wider area with my men as well," said Skrzetuski. "And then, perhaps, princess, I can escort you to put your case for holding Rozłogi to the prince."
If looks could have killed, Jan Skrzetuski would have been a greasy spot on the floor.
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Helena awoke feeling slightly disoriented, but also happy.
She was not to start the day being told what a useless burden she was, but was cherished by Jurij Bohun. And having spent some time with him, and having heard his promise to one he thought sleeping, she felt less nervous of him.
"Rise and shine, little cuckoo," said Jurko's voice. "My men think you a little fancy, but you have a tent of your own over by the latrines where you can wash as well; I don't suppose you want to cavort naked in a Cossack steam bath with the rest of us. They will laugh at you, and call you 'Baby Lach' and 'Little Princeling'; and if any of them calls you 'waćpanna' it will be by way of sarcasm, not for having recognised your sex."
"Thank you, Jurko," said Helena, softly. "I ... I half woke last night ... I heard what you said. Thank you." She came out of her 'room', looking every inch a little boy.
He took her hand and kissed it.
"I would do anything for you," he said.
She noticed in passing that one of her plaits lay by his pillow. A love token! She was not sure what to think, or how to feel. On the one hand, it was exciting for a grown man to feel so about her; on the other, his intensity was a little scary.
"How old are you, Jurko?" she asked.
"Almost one-and-twenty," he said.
"I'm almost sixteen," she told him. "You're not technically a grown man, then."
"I've been a grown man as a Cossack since I was younger than you," said Jurko. "Do five years between us matter so much?"
"No," said Helena. "Your experience lies between us though. And ... and that you know how to kill."
"I'm a warrior; it's what I do," said Jurko. "You may not have the stomach for it, but at least you will know how and why I take pride in my swordplay."
The sabre drill was gruelling, and Jurko drove Helena until she was almost crying. He called her 'Parysz' as a joke on her name; even Helena knew the tale of Helen of Troy, even if she was hazy about where Sparta and Troy might be.
She was glad to be bare headed, and so very hairless when the troop of horsemen trotted into the camp, led by a handsome Polish knight and with her cousins along.
"Hola, Simeon, Yury, Andriy, Nikolai, what brings you here?" asked Jurko.
"This is Jan Skrzetuski; he's from Prince Jeremi," said Simeon, the spokesman. "Helena has run away and has gone missing. We ... well, we hoped you had seen her."
"The devil!" swore Jurko. "What did you uncouth yobs do to make her run away?"
Skrzetuski raised an eyebrow to hear a Cossack call the brothers 'uncouth yobs'; not that he disagreed.
"I don't think we did anything," said Simeon.
"That's your problem, you don't do anything," snarled Jurko. "You let your mother call her 'useless' and 'a burden' and talk about the girl as if she sat around like some useless waste of space expecting her every whim to be catered to, when I know full well she sews for you, orders the meals, sees that food is purchased and essentially runs the house at the beck and call of your mother."
"She lets you call her 'mother' too," said Simeon.
"While I am useful to her," said Jurko. "Search the camp; your Lach friend wants to. I'm going to search for Helena. Come, whelp, I'll teach you tracking on the way," he nodded to Helena.
The brothers looked right over the 'little Cossack boy'; and Skrzetuski barely noticed 'him.'
"Should we not speak to the officer if the prince sent him?" said Helena, as they saddled up.
"Yes, but we will waylay him when he leaves. Your cousins will stay to carouse with my men," said Jurko.
This seemed very likely.
Skrzetuski left with his men, wondering how he was going to explain to the prince; to be waylaid by the Cossack captain and the lad he was training.
"Lach," said Jurko, "Tell the prince that the princess is safe. I will bring her to him when she feels able to face the world, but give her up to her cousins, I will not do."
It never occurred to Jan Skrzetuski to think that a little boy he had seen at sabre practice, whose natural grace covered many deficiencies, might be an older little girl. Not with the oseledets. It would never occur to Skrzetuski that any girl, however desperate, would go to such lengths.